Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Scheme (Mahatma Gandhi NREGS) provides for enhancement of livelihood security of households in rural areas of the country by providing at least 100 days of guaranteed wage employment in every financial year to every rural household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled labour. The Scheme is implemented on an end-to-end integrated transaction-based MIS platform called NREGASoft through which all aspects relating to planning, administrative and technical approval of the scheme, issue of job cards, acceptance of demand, issue of muster roll, measurement, approval of payment and finally payment to the beneficiary through a DBT-PFMS platform are monitored.

Transparency and accountability is the prime focus of the scheme. Ministry of Rural Development has adopted robust process for ensuring the transparency and accountability in implementation of the scheme across the States/UTs. Brief note of the various monitoring and evaluation arrangements made for ensuring the proper utilization of the funds released under the Scheme are given at Annexure.

Regarding use of labour displacing machine under Mahatma Gandhi NREGS, it is stated that as per Para 22 of Schedule-I of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (Mahatma Gandhi NREGA), 2005, “as far as practicable, works executed by the programme implementation agencies shall be performed by using manual labour and no labour displacing machines shall be used”.

However, there may be activities in executing works which cannot be carried out by manual labour, where use of machine may become essential for maintaining the quality and durability of works. As and when any instance of use of labour displacing machines comes/brought to the notice of the Ministry, such cases are inquired into in coordination with the concerned States/UTs and necessary follow up actions are ensured.

This information was given by the Minister of State for Rural Development Shri Kamlesh Paswan in a written reply in Lok Sabha today.

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Annexure

1. Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT): Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) system in wage payment has been adopted under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Scheme (Mahatma Gandhi NREGS). The payment of wages to the bank/ post office accounts of Mahatma Gandhi NREGS workers is through National Electronic Fund Management System (NeFMS)/Electronic Fund Management System (eFMS).
2. National Mobile Monitoring Service (NMMS): It enables capturing of attendance of workers at Mahatma Gandhi NREGA worksites (except for individual beneficiary works) along with geo-tagged photograph twice in a day. This app aids in increasing citizen oversight of the programme. This is one more step towards transparency and accountability.
3. Area Officer Monitoring Visit Application: This App facilitates the officials of the State/UT to record their field visit findings online. The App also allows the officials to record time stamped and geotagged photograph for all the schemes launched by Department of Rural Development. Also, this App helps in developing hassle-free reporting of the field visits. This app records the field visit findings and views the field visit outcome report by the senior officials.
4. GIS based plan– Use of Space Technology: GIS based GP level plan (ridge to valley approach) preparation using Remote Sensing technology in a saturation mode for all the GPs of the country.
5. Yuktdhara : GIS based planning tool – To simplify the GIS based planning at GP level under Mahatma Gandhi NREGA “ Yuktdhara” a Geospatial planning portal is developed in collaboration with ISRO-NRSC.
6. SECURE – Software for Estimate Calculation for using Rural Rates for Employment :- Application is being used for estimate the calculation of works to be undertaken under the scheme.
7. GeoNREGA: the app has been developed by using Space Technology to track the creation of assets by geotagging it, at “Before”, “During” and “After” stages of the asset creation.
8. JALDOOT App: JALDOOT app has been developed to enable monitoring of ground water tables across the country. The Jaldoot app enables Gram Rojgar Sahayak (GRS) to measure the water level of selected wells twice a year (pre-monsoonand post-monsoon).
9. JANMANREGA app: this app helps in proactive disclosure of information to its citizens in reference to the implementation of Mahatma Gandhi NREGS. Citizen awareness is a key to efficient, effective, and transparent execution of the scheme.
10. Ombudsperson App- An Ombudsperson App has been developed for smooth reporting and categorization of grievances received from various sources viz. physical, digital and mass media related to the implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi NREGS, easy tracking and timely passing of awards on each case as per the guidelines and easy uploading of quarterly and annual report on the website.
11. Social Audits: As per the mandate of the Act, the Ministry has laid emphasis on the setting up of an institutional structure at the States/UTs level for facilitating social audits of all the Gram Panchayats at least twice a year. With the consistent efforts by Ministry, a total of 27 States and 1 UT have established Independent Social Audit Units.

Further, monitoring by National level monitors regular and special monitoring, monitoring by team of central level officers, monitoring visits by Common review Mission teams, monitoring through use of Area Officers app is being conducted for better implementation of the programme. Also, State specific reviews of States are also undertaken from time to time.

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MG/RN/KSR/2019

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